The Brink
by spooksfan08
Summary: Ruth is worried about Ros. Lucas knows there is more going on behind hs wife's Ice Queen persona and can't handle being pushed away anymore. In the aftermath of Lessons and the struggle to cope with the current case can Ruth help her friend and can Lucas pull her back to them before it's too late? Companion piece to One Fine Day. *Adult themes/rated for reference to violence*
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer I do not own Spooks. All Spooks related characters, storylines etc belong to Kudos and BBC television. Not me. No copyright infringement is intended or should be inferred. This story is a very very strong T verging on an M. This is the companion piece to One Fine Day.**

**Memories**

It was dark when Ros finally gave in and tried to close her eyes. The suspect arrested over the threat to the London Olympics had been in custody for a little over twelve hours, during which time she had been convinced three of her team, including one of the few she actually considered a friend had been killed. She smiled slightly when she thought of Zaf. It seemed the cheeky, happy-go-lucky lad actually did have a very strong survival instinct. When she had asked him what the Hell he had been playing at he had shrugged his shoulders, smiled and just stated he had Zoe and the kids to get home to and that was that. Like her. She had Lucas, Amy and James to come home too. Sighing heavily, she knew he was right. She also knew there was no way she was going to be able to sleep. Ros swore under her breath before turning on her side to stare at her husband. Lucas, it seemed had no trouble sleeping. The casual observer would think he had no cares in the world, his dark hair ruffled and pale face seemed untroubled by the world's troubles. Ros knew that was far from the truth.

"Ros." Lucas kept his eyes closed as he spoke. Ros raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

"Stop watching me." He smiled as he spoke. He knew he had caught her red handed. Ros smirked. There were very few people that would know when she was watching them. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She propped herself on her elbow as he finally opened his eyes to watch her. She focused on the tattoos on his bare chest and decided not to tell him what was really going through her mind. She knew Ruth was right, there was no way she was going to be able to go through reliving her memories, if they were actually memories. She still had no idea what had happened to her and had refused to read any of the transcripts from the interviews Harry and Zaf had conducted with Harrison. "Ros."

"Sorry." She touched his chest, gently running her fingers along the old Russian tattoo. He caught his hand in his as he began to kiss her. Ros slipped her hand into his messy dark hair and kissed him back. Lucas smiled slightly, the first to pull away gasping for air he rested his forehead against hers. She closed her eyes again as his hand slipped up under the white vest top she wore.

"Lucas." She pulled away, hating herself for rejecting him. He sighed as he watched her walk away, grabbing her robe as she walked.

"What is it?"

"I think I heard James." Ros lied fluently, knowing that Lucas would see straight through her lies. Amy was the one who heard every little creek but James was like his father. Once he was asleep there was nothing that could wake him.

"Ok." Lucas laid back on the bed. He knew Ros was pushing him away and he had no idea why.

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"Harry," Ruth walked into the living room as he sat on the sofa staring at the television. A documentary about World War Two spies had caught his attention and she knew he would be sat there trying to see what the differences in twenty-first century spies and the 1940s counterparts. She smiled slightly as she saw him sat there with Scarlet curled up at his feet.

"Ruth." He smiled as she sat next to him. "Is everything alright?"

"No." He snapped his eyes away from the television, immediately worried about his heavily pregnant wife.

"The house is like a bomb site, so we are stuck in this safe house with the cats, Scarlett and Nick. I'm about to drop and I think Ros is having some sort of breakdown." She bit her lip as she watched Harry try to work out what she was really worried about.

"Why do you think that?"

"I promised I wouldn't say but I think it has something to do with what happened at the school."

"Harrison." Harry almost hissed the name as Ruth looked at her hands.

"Beth said she was almost catatonic at the house explosion today. Lucas and Dimitri pulled a load of rubble and a door from her. Beth said it was almost like she had shut down. It was Lucas and Zaf issuing orders and organising the team while she seemed to disappear into herself." Ruth sighed as Harry covered her hand with his own. She stopped fidgeting immediately.

"Ok," Harry paused. "I am not sending her to Tring. That place."

"Would analyse her to within an inch of her sanity. She wouldn't be the same Ros." Ruth bit her bottom lip. "She wouldn't be the same. Now once I would have thought that was a good thing."

"Now?"

"Harry. She was hurt and she isn't even able to remember it."

"I hope she never remembers." Harry spoke honestly as the television played out in the background. Scarlett yawned before wandering to where her basket had been placed hours earlier.

"I think she can." Ruth looked directly at him. "I refused to read those transcripts because I'm mentioned in them too. Because Ros is my friend. I didn't want to know what happened to her if she didn't remember it." Ruth continued "But I think."

"All we can do is watch and be there for her." He hugged her to him. "I'll be damned if I lose her as a Section Chief. She's the best I've had and I'll be damned if we're going to let her go on self destruct. She did that once." Harry paused.

"After Jo." Ruth nodded, remembering the Section Chief's death wish almost four years earlier. She knew that there was a very real chance she would have died either by committing suicide or throwing herself into the line of fire if Lucas hadn't been around in the first few weeks after Jo's death. She knew her friend still blamed herself.

"We'll look after her." Harry kissed Ruth's hair as she settled next to him. He just hoped it would be enough.

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"Ros." Lucas appeared behind her as she watched the baby sleeping peacefully in his cot. The little boy was almost a clone of Lucas and had inherited his tendency to let things happen around him but everyone could see didn't miss anything.

"He's just settled." Ros rested her head back against his chest.

"Good. Teething again." He kissed Ros' shoulder as she let her eyes close. "Ros." He turned her and led her from the little boy's bedroom. He could feel her tense under his touch and hated every second of it.

"I'm tired." She rested her hands against his chest, not expecting him to hold her wrists and stop her moving away.

"Of me? Of us? Ros, what is going on?" The desperation in his voice almost broke her heart.

"No. Lucas. No." She blinked, unsure of when her eyes had filled with tears.

"Then?" He frowned slightly. He knew Ros would never be unfaithful, that she would never risk their family but she had been under strain since before he had been stabbed and he needed to know why.

"It's nothing."

"Ros, please."

"What? Lucas? What exactly do you want me to say?" Ros snapped, careful to keep her voice low. Teh last thing she wanted to do was wake Amy and James.

"The truth. We know Harrison drugged you." Lucas knew he was on dangerous territory the moment her colour drained.

"Yes." Ros nodded. It was common knowledge that she had been injected with painkillers, hallucinogens and amnesic, aswell as a powerful chemical that would make sure she couldn't have any more children or remember what had happened for the following four hours. She looked away as another flashback hit. She was suddenly unable to breathe as the air seemed to be dragged out of the room, her limbs felt like lead as the room spun.

"Ros?" Lucas caught her as she was about to faint.

"I'm fine."

"No, you clearly are not fine." Lucas felt his own heart rate speed up dangerously as he held her. "Talk to me, Ros. Just please talk to me."

"I." Ros swallowed as she felt his arms hold her. "I."

"Ros." He brushed a strand of blonde hair away from her face. "Please."

"I remember." She sighed. "I think I remember."

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A/N One more chapter to go before it slots back into One Fine Day. Please review.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer not mine. Thanks for the support for this story. **

**Talk?**

Ruth lay on her side as she tried not to think of the last two cases the team had worked on. The safe house was barely what she would call homely but at the moment it was home to her, the boys and her pets. She smiled as she thought of how easily Scarlet and the cats had adapted to it. Nick seemed pleased that the repairs at their own house meant his room was also getting decorated and Harry had seemingly taken it all in his stride. Teh only time she had seen him flounder was when she had mentioned Ros. There was no way she would ever break Ros' confidence, even with Harry but she was not going to let the Section Chief destroy herself like Jo had done and like she had wanted to so many years earlier.

"Ruth." HArry wrapped his arm around her, gently stroking her baby bump through her nightshirt.

"Hmm?"

"Go to sleep and stop worrying. All we can do is be there. She hasn't asked about the file or the interviews once."

"But with Tessa pleading innocent." Ruth sighed. "We all have to give evidence. I know it's behind a screen and we will be given letters instead of using our names but they all know who Officer R and P will be. They know who we are and he knows what he did. What if something in the testimony sparks a memory for her? What if?"

"Ruth." Harry kissed her gently. "We will worry about that if it happens. She may well change her plea again. You know Tessa, she just likes to keep us on edge."

"I know. And I thought Juliet was a scheming cow." Ruth looked at Harry's bare chest as he smiled.

"Compared to Tess, Juliet always was an amateur." He kissed her gently. "Now can we stop talking about work and other women when we are in bed. Right now there is only one woman I am interested in." He smiled slightly as he saw the familiar blush rise up her cheeks.

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"Drink this." Lucas handed Ros a mug of tea as she sat staring into space. She didn't even acknowledge his presence.

"I was horrible to Jo."

"No you weren't." Lucas sat next to her on the sofa. The children slept on peacefully as he stared at his hands. He knew Ros was strong. She was probably the strongest woman he had ever met. The fact that she had been attacked and couldn't even remember parts of it was destroying her.

"I was. When you came back it was only a day before I was pulled out of a deep cover op in Russia." She stared at the tea. "And I was supposed to be dead."

"I know."

"Adam and Jo had been through Hell. Adam, well." She shrugged. "He deals with it by faking his death and running after Zaf."

"And?"

"And Jo quietly dies inside until she stands in front of my bullet. She remembered every little bit of what happened. Do you know she never smoked until then? That she barely drank? It hardened her in so many ways but she just couldn't deal with it. Adam tried to help, or so I am told." She paused. "What did I do? What I always do. Leave her to deal with her own shit nad made sure the job was done. Whatever the cost."

"Ros." Lucas took the mug from her hand. "You should stop blaming yourself for Jo. You know she'd hate that."

"Maybe." Ros stared at her empty hands, unsure what to do with them now Lucas had taken her tea away. He closed his eyes for a moment before reaching across and holding her hands.

"Definitely. Ros, you need to talk to someone. Someone who knows what to do."

"I am not going to Tring. No way." She shrugged his hands away.

"I didn't say Tring."

"Then what?" She kept her voice deliberately low, knowing the last thing she wanted was to have Amy wandering in and seeing her upset.

"There are groups, support for."

"If you say victim I will walk out that door." Ros hissed before leaning heavily against the door and running her hand through her short blonde hair. "I am not a victim."

"No." Lucas crossed to her. "But you can't do this on your own. If you wont talk to someone else talk to me."

"I."

"Ros." He brushed her hair away from her face. "This is me. Eight years in a Russian hell hole, one failed marriage, one stupid mistake leading me to change my name and hide for god knows how long. Nothing you can say can shock me." He watched as she smiled slightly.

"You have been a busy boy."

"Apart from the eight years." He kissed her forehead as her eyes fell closed. "When I was in Russia, in prison there were attacks like this. Not me. I was in solitary mostly but even so you heard."

"Yeah." Ros nodded. She knew how brutal the penal system in the former USSR really was. "I just, I knew what was happening in the office. I knew I had to get Beth away. They wold have killed her. I can still feel him, his hands. His breath. Stank of coffee and cigarette smoke. But everything else is hazy. I don't know how I ended up with Ruth. I don't know the same didn't happen to her."

"It didn't." Lucas watched as Ros' eyes clouded in confusion. "I asked her. I asked her what she knew about your abduction and I asked her about her own. She wasn't touched, like that. Maybe because she was clearly pregnant at the time."

"Maybe." Ros sighed. "Maybe the bastards did have something in them."

"Them?" Lucas felt his blood run cold.

"I don't know." Ros looked away, disgusted with herself. "I think it was just him but I don't know."

"Ros." Lucas whispered her name as he pulled her into his arms, relieved that she didn't pull him away. Her arms wrapped around him as he buried his face in her hair, determined to protect her.

"How can you look at me?" She mumbled into his bare chest. "How can you even bare to?"

"Because none of this is your fault." He pulled back and looked her in the eye. "Because I love you." Ros smiled slightly, she knew when Lucas was lying and she knew when he was trying to protect someone's feelings. That wasn't happening right now. "And I know you. I know you are going to beat this. Because you are right. You are not a victim."

"No." Ros nodded. "I am not."

"But you need to see someone, a counsellor. I had to when I got back from Russia."

"It was a condition of you returning." Ros remembered.

"Yeah and as much as I hated it I was relieved it wasn't Tring and it did help. If you put the work in too." He raised an eyebrow as he remembered how the staff psychologist was slightly scared of his wife. Ros could stare down a Major in charge of an SAS troop. An MI 5 psychologist was nothing.

"Ok." Ros surprised herself as she spoke. "No quacks. No realigning chakra crap and I'll talk to someone."

"Good." Lucas smiled slightly. He glanced across at the abandoned mugs on the table. He needed something stronger than tea. "It's strange at first but it helps."

"If you say so." She sighed.

"I do. Ros."

"Yeah?"

"When?"

"Let's get the bloody Opening Ceremony over tomorrow." She glanced at her watch. "Today." She corrected herself "And I will make an appointment."

"I'll be there." Lucas watched as she held his gaze. He couldn't help but smile slightly. He knew the Ros he had met on his return to London had been replaced by the woman in front of him but the steel was still there. She was still stronger than anyone he had ever met. The woman was a born spook and could take care of herself. He knew it had been hard for her to admit she was hurt.

"Yeah?"

"Ros. I am not going anywhere." He sighed as she nodded and slipped her fingers through his. For the first time since she had been found he could see she was coming back to him. It would be a long journey but his Ros was still there. He realised he had been quiet for a while when he felt her hand on his face, a thumb running over his stubble.

"Good." She sighed. "Because neither am I."

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A/N Not sure I like this chapter but that's it. Next chapter of One Fine Day up soon. Hope I did the subject matter and the characters justice.


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